The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to logging virtual machines provided by information handling systems into virtual fabrics.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Some information handling systems are configured to provide a Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Network (SAN) for the storage of data. In such systems, an FC switch device may be utilized to couple the FC SAN to server devices via a Fibre Channel Forwarder (FCF) device that performs FC over Ethernet (FCoE)-to-FC protocol conversions on Ethernet communications sent from the server devices to the FC SAN, as well as FC-to-FCoE protocol conversions on FC communications sent from the FC SAN to the server devices. Such FCF devices allow server devices that communicate via the Ethernet protocol to utilize FC SANs that communicate via the FC protocol. Furthermore, the FC switch device may be partitioned into, or provide access to, one or more logical FC switch devices that are each assigned to a logical (virtual) fabric (e.g., Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) and/or a Virtual Storage Area Network (VSAN)). Further still, server devices may include a hypervisor such as an Elastic Sky X integrated (ESXi) hypervisor provided by VMWARE® Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., United States, such that the server device may be partitioned in one or more virtual machines.
In conventional systems that provide a first virtual machine on the server device that logs in to a first virtual fabric and a second virtual machine on the server device that logs in to a second virtual fabric, that server device is required to have two converged network adapters (CNAs) or two host bus adapters (HBAs), as each adapter is only capable of logging in to one fabric at a time. As such, if there is only one CNA/HBA, the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine may only operate via the one fabric to which the CNA/HBA is logged in. Thus, to communicate with multiple virtual fabrics, conventional server devices require an adapter for each virtual fabric, which can lead to under-utilization of bandwidth on the adapters and excess hardware, particularly when the traffic routed between the virtual machines and their separate virtual fabrics via the separate adapters could be handled by fewer adapters.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved virtual machine virtual fabric login system.